How has war changed in US history textbooks?

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Podcasts Take Two

Jul 31, 2014

Listen • 4:30

How has war changed in US history textbooks?

A recent study finds that since the 1970s, U.S. high school history textbooks have increasingly focused on the personal experiences of soldiers, rather than on impersonal accounts of battles.

Soldiers Lance Corporal Murphy (R) and Sergeant Paige patrol a jungle area, carrying a rifle and a pistol during the Vietnam War, 1960s.

A recent study finds that since the 1970s, U.S. high school history textbooks have increasingly focused on the personal experiences of soldiers, rather than on impersonal accounts of battles.

Since the 1970s, depictions of World War II and the Vietnam War in U.S. history textbooks have changed.

A recent study finds that U.S. high school history textbooks now increasingly focus on the personal experiences of soldiers, rather than on impersonal accounts of battles. The number and type of references to death and casualties has changed too.

Richard Lachmann, sociology professor at The University at Albany-SUNY joins Take Two to discuss his study, "The Changing Face of War in Textbooks: Depictions of World War II and Vietnam, 1970-2009."